Guardian Short Storie Podcast
1) Sebastian Barry reads 'Eveline' by James Joyce
Forty years after he first read it, Sebastian Barry returns to James Joyce’s short story Eveline
2) Anita Desai reads The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore returned again and again to the voiceless women of Bengal, as in his short story The Postmaster, says Anita Desai
3) Jon McGregor reads 'Notes from the House Spirits' by Lucy Wood
Lucy Wood builds a story from glimpses and suggestions in ‘Notes from the House Spirits’, says Jon McGregor
4) Yiyun Li reads 'Three People' by William Trevor
Yiyun Li reads William Trevor’s ‘Three People’, a short story which moved her to write a story in reply, ‘Gold Boy, Emerald Girl’
5) AS Byatt reads 'At Hiruharama' by Penelope Fitzgerald
Penelope Fitzgerald looks at the world anew in her short story ‘At Hiruharama’, says AS Byatt
6) Hanif Kureishi reads 'A Hunger Artist' by Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka’s story of a man who starves himself for entertainment, The Hunger Artist, is ‘absurb, moving and timely’, says Hanif Kureishi
7) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reads 'No Sweetness Here' by Ama Ata Aidoo
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie admires the ‘old-fashioned social realism’ of Ama Ata Aidoo’s ‘No Sweetness Here’
8) Nadine Gordimer reads 'The Centaur' by José Saramago
José Saramago tackles the conflict between mind and body in ‘The Centaur’, says Nadine Gordimer
9) Simon Callow reads 'The Christmas Tree' by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens celebrated Christmas throughout his writing life. His autobiographical story ‘A Christmas Tree’ is ‘almost Proustian’, says Simon Callow
10) Ruth Rendell reads 'Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook' by MR James
Ruth Rendell doesn’t believe in ghosts, of course, but MR James’s stories, like ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’, frighten her nonetheless